Organizing Knowledge: Encyclopaedic Activities in the Pre-Eighteenth Century Islamic World (Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science)

257 Pages·2006·2.18 MB·English

by  Gerhard Endress

ORGANIZING KNOWLEDGE
ISLAMIC PHILOSOPHY
THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE
Texts and Studies
EDITED BY
H. DAIBER and D. PINGREE
VOLUME LXI
ORGANIZING KNOWLEDGE
Encyclopædic Activities in the
Pre-Eighteenth Century Islamic World
EDITED BY
GERHARD ENDRESS
PREFACE BY
ABDOU FILALI-ANSARY
BRILL
LEIDEN •BOSTON
2006
Proceedings of a Colloquium held at the Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations
The Aga Khan University (International) in the United Kingdom
(London, November14-16, 2003)
This book is printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Organizing knowledge : encyclopaedic activities in the pre-eighteenth century Islamic
world / preface by Abdou Filali-Ansary ; edited by Gerhard Endress.
p. cm. — (Islamic philosophy, theology, and science ; v. 61)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-90-04-14697-6
ISBN-10: 90-04-14697-0 (hardback : alk. paper)
1. Encyclopedias and dictionaries, Arabic—History and criticism. 2. Islamic
learning and scholarship—History. I. Filali-Ansary, Abdou. II. Endress, Gerhard,
1939- III. Series.
AG10.55.O74 2006
039’.927—dc22
2006043937
ISSN 0169-8729
ISBN-13:978-90-04-14697-6
ISBN-10:90-04-14697-0
© Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers,
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written
permission from the publisher.
Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal
use is granted by Brill provided that
the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright
Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910
Danvers MA 01923, USA.
Fees are subject to change.
printed in the netherlands
Aga Khan University’s Institute for the Study of Muslim
Civilisations (AKU-ISMC) was established in 2002 in London.
The Institute’s goal is to strengthen research on, and promote under-
standing of, the cultures of Muslims, past and present. It works to
address important issues of contemporary societies, including social
justice, governance, moral and legal thought, and the environment.
Its activities and educational programmes apply the methodologies
of the humanities and social sciences to the study of Muslim cul-
tures and seek to create opportunities for interaction amongst a wide
audience across intellectual disciplines.
Aga Khan University (AKU) is a private, self-governing institution
with teaching and research programmes in Egypt, Pakistan, Kenya,
Tanzania, Uganda, Afghanistan, Syria and the United Kingdom.
The University includes a Medical College, a School of Nursing, two
teaching hospitals, an Institute for Educational Development, an
Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilisations, and an Examination
Board. A Faculty of Arts and Sciences is being built on a new cam-
pus near Karachi, and other major developments in Pakistan, East
Africa and elsewhere are at the planning stage.
The University is part of the Aga Khan Development Network
(AKDN), a group of private international development agencies work-
ing to improve living conditions and create opportunities for the dis-
advantaged in the developing world through social, economic and
cultural development.
www.aku.edu/ismc
www.akdn.org

CONTENTS
Preface ........................................................................................ ix
Abdou Filali-Ansary
Editor’s Note .............................................................................. xiii
Gerhard Endress
The Contributors ...................................................................... xv
THE CONCEPT OF ENCYCLOPÆDIA
Encyclopædic Activities in the Islamic World: A Few
Questions, and No Answers .................................................. 3
Josef van Ess
THE ARABIC ISLAMIC TRADITIONS
Biographical Dictionaries as the Scholars’ Alternative History
of the Muslim Community .................................................. 23
Wadad al-Qadi
Encyclopædic Activities in Islamic Jurisprudence .................... 77
Ridwan al-Sayyid
THE IRANIAN AND GREEK TRADITIONS
The Greek and Persian Background of Early Arabic
Encyclopedism ........................................................................ 91
Dimitri Gutas
The Cycle of Knowledge: Intellectual Traditions and
Encyclopædias of the Rational Sciences in Arabic Islamic
Hellenism ................................................................................ 103
Gerhard Endress
Organizing Scientific Knowledge: The ‘Mixed’ Sciences in
Early Classifications ................................................................ 135
Elaheh Kheirandish
viii contents
The Brethren of Purity (Ikhwàn al-Íafà") and their
Philosophical Treatises (Rasà"il) ............................................ 155
Mokdad Arfa
INTEGRATIVE CONCEPTS
Al-Qazwìnì’s 'Ajà"ib al-makhlùqàt: An Encyclopædia of
Natural History? .................................................................... 171
Syrinx von Hees
L’Encyclopédisme dans l’historiographie: réflexions sur le cas
d’Ibn Khaldùn ........................................................................ 187
Abdesselam Cheddadi
A EUROPEANIST’S PERSPECTIVE
A Europeanist’s Perspective ...................................................... 201
Ann Blair
Bibliography ................................................................................ 217
General Index ............................................................................ 227
PREFACE
Pre-18th century Muslim cultures may be said to be ‘book cultures’.
There is little need here to stress the enormous expansion of writ-
ing and the accumulation of written compendia in Muslim contexts
during the centuries that preceded the 18th century, and the deep
influence it had on the making of a social order and the founding
of structures of authority. In a novel which has greatly impressed
the imagination in recent years, Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red cap-
tured the spirit of a time, the ethos of large communities of artists,
miniaturists, calligraphers, binders—professionals of bookmaking—
who lived for centuries in an area stretching from Central Asia to
the Atlantic Ocean. However, what he so strongly conveyed was
only one, albeit significant, part of the story.
Miniaturists’ workshops spread throughout these areas were prob-
ably the tip of an iceberg, encompassing large communities of schol-
ars, copyists, painters, bookmakers, their apprentices, etc. Illuminations
and illustrations were designed for relatively small circles of wealthy
and powerful clients. However, those who handled and copied texts
alone (absent of illuminations or illustrations) enjoyed unchallenged
prestige in much wider circles, its men and women (for there were
women too) the keepers and transmitters of what the community
considered to be its most precious treasure. The vast corpus of knowl-
edge thus transmitted encompassed not only the word of God and
the hadith of His Prophet, but also exegesis works, commentaries,
compendia of law, books on grammar, etc.; its accumulation over
many centuries and across a vast geographic area was impressive
not only in its quantity and variety but also its impact on collective
consciousness. It defined, as much or more than any other institu-
tion, the ethos and worldview of one of the largest, and oldest, com-
munities in the history of mankind. The views and conceptions which
were disseminated through written literature were endowed with the
authority of what was considered to be 'ilm (Science). This literary
corpus laid and sustained systems of authority, in terms of concep-
tion of the world, history and men, and at the level of norms which
were formulated to rule individual and communities’ lives.